Sunshine & (Heavy) Showers

After a relatively easy day yesterday I decided to take the long route back to Geneva.

I started off along Lac de Bourget which was stunning in the sunshine.

After admiring the art deco architecture in Aix Le Bains the climbing started.

As I was feeling good on the fairly gradual climb up to Cusy I decided to take a detour and climb Le Semnoz which reaches 1,700m after 11km at 8%. 

The legs stayed feeling good and I managed not to be overtaken by any riders although Benoit very nearly caught me at the top. He lives at the foot of the climb and was in training for the Etape next week.

I was careful not to do a Porte on the decent and got to Annecy in one piece. It was 30°C by now so I took Neil Bowman's advice and did a bit of lake swimming which was marvellous.

After a late lunch in Annecy, the day got trickier. After dropping my phone, Google Maps didn't want to work and I took the best part of an hour to get out to the countryside via various housing and industrial estates trying to avoid the dual carriageway that seemed to be the only route out.

Anyway, I got over the Col de Mallebranche but the promised thunderstorm was rapidly approaching. I took cover in a small town when it hit.

After it went from torrential to just heavy rain I set off for the last 40k - and cycling through clouds when it's raining is actually fun.

I finally got back to Geneva at 9pm and after a couple of recovery beers I called it a day. After the drenching at the end of the day the beer was aptly called Grimbergen.

But all in all a very enjoyable 140km with a leg stretching 3,000m of climbing.